What kind of yakity-yak and blah is there inside of this notebook? The question which haunts my mind, has all of my writing been transcribed? Can I keep my mind from straying, coming out of focus, organize my thoughts into a single piece of writing? How many times have I poured my mind into a blog, left it bareboned, high and dry, amid those vast, unseen critics of the depths of cyberspace? How many times has the blank dullness of the "No comments" button frustrated me?

How long do I sit and listen to the tap-tap-tapping, the clickity-click-click-clack, and that tamp-tamp-tamp-stomph-stomph-stomph that builds up all the sounds of a 'quiet' school day? I find it no more relaxing than finding an angry rattler in a closet. How long until my mind begins to return the ideas to their mysterious beginnings, only to repeat them, day after day after day in the buzz-click-buzzing noise of the 'modern world'? What kinds of sounds are actually there, inside my mind? The squeak-chink-squeaking, whining sound of the gerbils wheel as it spins around in endless circles that lead nowhere?

The sound of the tap-tap-clackity-clack of the keyboard as my mind turns ribbons of thought into flowing words? Or the wind that wails outside of the window, balefully calling, moaning and groaning until the house itself joins in and begins to creak and crunch and bend and sway, like the supple spring-time branches of the weeping willow down the street? What about the soft sound of papers rustling, blown by the breeze as they shake and rattle beneath their trapped covers of plastic and cardboard?

Until the sounds merge to one like the roar of a distant river, slowly meandering its way through the craggy boulder strewn channels, reaching the ever distant sea. The smell of fresh pine sap blown upon the crisp mountain air. Sun streaming down upon the ground, the soft twittering of birds serenading the forest itself. And that flash, like liquid silver, as a fish surfaces in all its glistening beauty, catching the fly that darts above it, falling back with a splash of color. And the crackle-schnap-crackle of the underbrush as you apporach the edge, the wings of wet birds flitting away, to glitter like jewels in the bright blue sky.

My eyes fill with joy as I watch those pale ghostly mayflies floating in dun colored clumps on the surface of the water, delicate wings folded against each other, the sailboats of nature. Until one floats too close to their predators lair beneath the crystal clear water and a mottled green nose, glimmering, rises above and delicately nips the bug off the surface. Gracefully retreating beneath the water once more to its hiding place beneath the rocks. Until the gentle rushing sound closes my ears off from all else and I return to the reality. The dark city in which I live with its smog filled skies and its weakly flowing creeks, the river downtown, afloat with all the sightseers. And I long to get away from it all, from the people. The people, who close in around me, day after day after day, until I can no longer stand it and hide in my solitude, to recover my senses, and get rid of the horrible claustriphobia that comes with the masses of people.

NYC. I have never been there, but I will be going sometime later this year. The biggest problem I have with this is the continuous exposure to large groups of people. People, people, people. And it's times like these when I long the most for those pine sap scented streams and the calm blue-sky days of my home.

Yes, this blog is in the writing section, but once in awhile I'll have other stuff to put in here as well.. I'm...sort of political, so tis may change to a political blog in an unforseen amount of time. It depends on how many of these rants I write.

I find the problem with being underage for the ability to vote is quite frustrating. Watching all the politics that go on daily at the government level is enticing, and I'd love to be able to vote. Sadly, that power is not available to me at this point in time. But I look foreward to the day when I can. I will state right out that I am neither Republican nor Democrat, but if I have to lean towards one it's the Democrat. I have difficulty explaining my frustration and exasperatin with the current administration that's in the White House. They've done so many dispicable things that it's beyond reason and possible comprehension for me to explain my feelings digitally.

I've never thought much of this administration, but the warning lights in my head began to go off as soon as he'd been elected. When all of those electronic voting machines suddenly became disfuntional in Florida. I felt that something was out of place there, and eventually, finding out more in recent years, I've found my original hunch to be right. I have been apalled at polls where people have been supporting him, right through descisions he's made that have harmed other people. Especially people who don't think you're "Patriotic" when you don't support a war. One of my friends at school asked me that question one day.

"...So you're not patriotic?" She asked me during one of our discussions of politics. I shook my head in exasperation. Leaving that subject behind me. I've been asked that question, by so many different people that it gets on my nerves. It irritates me. There's a difference between the word "Patriotic" in the dictionary, and the "Patriotic" they refer to. Their version is better known as "Nationalism". Purely to double check the meanings I have in my head, I went to my dictionary and proved myself right. There is a difference. Those two words and those two contexts of the same word. They mean entirly different things.

"Patriotic or Patriotism: Love of one's own country."~ Merriam-Webster's Dictionary.

"Nationalism: Loyalty and devotion to a nation espescially as expressed in glorifying one nation above all others..."~ Merriam-Webster's Dictionary

There is a large difference that I see between both definitions. Patriotism is the love of your own country, but it specifically doesn't say that you think your country is entirely better than any others. Nationalism seems to be patriotism carried to the extreme, so all other countries must be thrown in your nation's shadow. Personally, I consider myself semi-patriotic. I feel that the ideals of the US make sense, and I think that's a good thing. But, I do not like the current administration. I know people who have lost those they love deeply to the war that is not justifiable by most people's standards. It disturbs me that this was supported after the Bush administration had already attacked Afghanistan without any plan for reconstruction. I see no reason to support a war I do not believe in.

Yet, the annoying, eternal question that gets asked of those who do not support this war continues to float around. "But..doesn't that mean you're not patriotic?" or the variation that rears its hideous head from time to time, "If you don't like America why don't you move somewhere else?" This irritates me even more. It's not that one hates America itself. It's that one dislikes the administration to a point that it seems that living anywhere else is appealing. No one likes to be told what to do however, and I have snapped out at these people sometimes when it is not justified. Other times, they deserve it.

Take, for instance, lunch one day at my school. My class is made up of nine people. All of us like to talk freely at lunch, and sometimes we turn to political topics. Other time, politics is discussed during class. Both times there have been two people who complain about how liberal our class is. How 'left-wing' as someone put it. There arises in a debate a point at which the nitpickers run out of reasons to nitpick. This has been their fallback question more than once. "Why do you hate Bush? It's not like he's done anything to you personally." It was something to that effect.

The short answer to that would be "I don't like him because his policies have been undermining laws that have been in places for years." Answers would be varied of course, but that is my own opinion in a nutshell. My long answer ends up confusing everyone execpt for three people in the room (not including myself) because I have an obsession with keeping up with the news. I listen to NPR during the day and later on I read Reuters and political blogs. I keep in the know about lots of things. I read books my parents check out (sometimes) that have to do with economics and politics. I try to learn as much as I can to justify my views.

I find that the biggest reason I dislike the Bush administration is how many laws they've manipulated and changed and created. *shudder* Which place a great deal more wealth and power in the hands of the upper class. Or that simply overstep amendment rights. Take for example the "Patriot Act". It gives the FBI autority to look at someone's library records without their knowladge. And the librarians can't talk to anyone about it. Now why they would need something like library records to help with "National security" is totally out of my vision. Most people who go to the library and check out books are simply reading to learn more, to become educated in areas they don't know much about.

How many people are going to go to a library and check out a book on "How to make "? While they're doing something that useless, why don't they go to "HowStuffWorks.com" and eliminate all of their articles on how to pick locks and create potato cannons? That would make about as much sense. And then looking at some things in the "No Child Left Behind Act". That's one that I rather despise. A lot.

Exhibit A: According to the "No Child Left Behind Act" schools are required to give army recruitment officers a list of names and addresses of their students if it's requested and if they decline, they lose federal funding. How much sense does that make? Not giving out potentially confidential information to the Army = No federal funding. Hmmm... Doesn't add up in my mind.

Exhibit B: It also puts more importance in testing than learning. A question for the testing supporters: How do tests actually help you in real life? My answer: Not at all. Tests help with nothing in the real world. All those numbers that you rake in, all those "A"s "B"s and so on that you earn in school don't do anything for you during the rest of your life. The rest of your life is based on skills you have in work. Not skills you have in taking tests.

I know I'm going to get people who don't agree with me who read this, and who say I'm too young to have an informed opinion. "You aren't able to vote yet after all." But I will say this, I don't care if I can't vote. I've written other political rants that have gained positive feedback in the past, and I findpolitics an intriguing and highly debatable topic.

I never realized this before. One of the most difficult things to do in the early stages of one's life is to convince someone else of something. Or to make them happy. I have recently had difficulties with the latter. Making someone happy, a single person, a drop in the bucket. It's so difficult to please them, to make them see what is right in front of them has had hard work put into it. Your trust and idealistic views of that person waver, failing as time presses onward. Difficulty with one person is not a fun experience. It's as though you've just gotten your face shoved into the asphalt. Everywhere you turn is a brick wall, trapping you within your own tiny square, isolating you.

being put into a slot of time labeled with your name is ust as bad. "Oh yeah," They say, "I'll put you on my calendar... *scribble scribble* Come back later." they say, smiling with their dagger-like teeth gritted against their mental pain of our arrival at the appointed time. It is always your time when they are busy. "Oh, I'm sorry, you've just missed them, would you like to leave a message?" Leaving in the suddenness of the anger, that insane, mind shredding infuriation at the irritating person who's refusing to see you.

And they always do this, until they have to look up to see you, crane their necks to look into a face that is so world weary that they feel sorry and allow you to see them. They refuse when you're below their line of sight, they refuse when you stand beneath the edge of the counter, looking up at them with eyes full of that burning internal flame of anger. They refuse, not because they have any good reason, other than that you're too young to know about such things.

The frustrations of these outings when you're younger get to you. They stick in your mind, piling up like so many sticky notes. "You're not mature enough." Is a response when you ask Why? Why can you not go over to your friend's house alone? You're not mature enough. That phrase carries over into your adolescence, a pale ghost of a shadow, heard within the words of your friends. "You're so immature. Look at the rest of us." They turn their backs to you, leaving you alone... alone in the single bright light of your so-called immaturity. You, the immature, are always on time, you keep those dates straight in your head. You go to where you say you will, keep faith in your friends, believe in yourself. The whole time that one phrase whispers itself in your ear, "You're immature, not mature enough, too young." It whispers gleefully, floating around and around in circular patterns, until it is the only thought that remains in your mind at night.

"You're not mature enough. Goodbye."

How many times a day is the sound of something man-made there, reaching in the depths of your mind to call forth a familiar artificial sound? The tapping clak-clak of a keyboard as the words flow from mind to digital blank paper. The popping sound of lightbulbs, brightly glowing before their light is forever dimmed. The tap-tap-tapping of a heat vent beginning to warm itself, billowing miniscule amounts of dust into the dark rescesses of the plastic and aluminum. And, late at night, usurping the reign of darkness. Lighting the cities with yellowing pale luminesence, the blue glow of televisions and computer screens, traffic lights, their green-yellow-red flitting across the street like giant, multicolored fireflies.

And the photographers with their cameras, who capture the ruptures in the balance of night and day, artificial day, lights burning brightly and seen from the vaccuum. And forever still the beautiful moments in the wilderness, bringing them back to be admired in the artificial lighting, defying the span of life and death, giving way to creation and decay. The same thing with different names. And the writers, with their late night rampages against those they disagree with, staring at the blank paper that drives them crazy with the thoughts which they cannot express fully.

It reminds me of the hunger that knaws at my being. To write, to create worlds, characters. To express my thoughts every day, to fill those maddening pieces of paper with words. I run fully into the brick walls that are strewn across my mind, uncertainties, obsticles, problems. And I wait for them to fall, to continue, improve, move foreward. It is only then that I am able to adjust, to find my muse once more. And take off running.

This is my first post in a new blog. I'm hoping that with this I will be able to put out my ideas and get some sort of feedbck on them. But first I will begin by introducing what I'm going to be talking about for awhile. Most of this is going to be a lot of nothingess...random things that I feel I need to explain to get to the peices and fragments of ideas from my writing. Every once in awhile I may link to illustrations of characters, beings, the planet or something from my book (story, poem...etc.).

Shattered Knights is a title inspired by something that recently happened in my life. It has been applied to a story I've been working on for the past year and a half now (It fits...they work together). I'm currently rennovating a few old ideas I've had in the back of my mind for this story. The network and span of characters is large... Enormous. I have way too many points of inspiration and usually that forces me to create a few new characters. The story's background is intricately woven (I've done a ton of detail with about a hundred or so years of the world I put in my story). At the moment I've only got a few that I'm using for main characters, developing them deeply with roleplaying. It helps me see the world as they see it.

It's gotten to the point whre I've had to make family trees to keep things straight. A difficulty I have with writing is not that I can't get enough inspiration but that I have too much of it. I have to write something every day or I get headaches and am unable to focus clearly on any one thing. It's much too distracting for me to have ideas shifting in and out of view of my imagination. If some things in furture posts make no sense it may just be that they're rough ideas. I have a lot of those floating around. Half page things typed up, single words quickly scribbled in misc. notebooks full of yellowing paper. A few posts may be nothing but giant lists. Lists are my obsession, I revert to them whenever I have to organize anything. I also use a lot of description and visual explinations. So if I'm trying to explain something and there's an image link, click on it, you'll probably get a better idea of what I'm triyng to explain.

In conclusion of this first post I must say that I hope that everyone who read my blog will enjoy it.